FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C.

March 20, 2024

ADVISORY OPINION 2024-01

Jonathan S. Berkon, Esq.

Courtney T. Weisman, Esq.

Sarah N. Mahmood, Esq.

Elias Law Group LLP

250 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Suite 400

Washington, DC 20001

Dear Counsel:

We are responding to your advisory opinion request on behalf of Texas Majority 

PAC (“TMP”), asking several questions regarding the application of the Federal Election 

Campaign Act, 52 U.S.C. §§ 30101 – 30145 (the “Act”), and Commission regulations to 

TMP’s proposal to hire vendors to canvass potential voters, namely whether canvassing 

literature and scripts, and their associated costs, are public communications, coordinated 

communications, or coordinated expenditures, and whether TMP can provide data 

acquired during the canvass to a federal candidate or party committee at less than fair 

market value.

The Commission concludes that the canvassing literature and scripts are not 

public communications, and as a result are not coordinated communications under 

Commission regulations. Further, the costs to produce and distribute the canvassing 

literature and scripts are not coordinated expenditures. Finally, the Commission 

concludes that if TMP provides the data that arises from its paid canvass to a federal 

candidate or party committee at less than its fair market value, it would be an in-kind 

contribution.

Background

The facts presented in this advisory opinion are based on your letter received on 

January 12, 2024, and email received on January 22, 2024. TMP is a nonfederal 
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 2

“general-purpose committee” registered with the Texas Ethics Commission.1

 TMP’s

major purpose is to elect Democrats to state and local office in Texas.2 TMP is not 

registered with the Commission and states that it is not established, financed, maintained, 

or controlled by any federal, state, or local candidate, party committee, or their agents.3

TMP seeks to retain and pay third-party vendors, managed by TMP’s paid staff, 

to execute a paid canvassing program (“Paid Canvass”).4

 The vendors will design and 

produce canvassing literature (“Canvassing Literature”) and a script (“Script”) to be used 

solely for the Paid Canvass.5

 The vendors will also hire, train and manage canvassers, 

who will go to voters’ homes to distribute the Canvassing Literature, read the Script, and 

record answers to the scripted questions.6 The canvassers will not engage in any other 

work or complete any other assignments for TMP.7 

TMP will preselect the voters who will be visited by the canvassers.8

 The Paid 

Canvass will not be limited to the homes of individuals who have opted-in or otherwise 

sought out a visit by the canvassers.9

 The vendors and individual canvassers will not 

have a contractual or business relationship with the voters whose homes will be visited.10

TMP anticipates the Paid Canvass will disseminate identical or substantially similar 

Campaign Literature and Scripts to more than 500 homes within a 30-day period.11 

The Paid Canvass will include three categories of expenditures: (1) production 

costs, (2) distribution costs, and (3) data costs.12 The production costs are the 

“[p]ayments to one or more vendor(s) to design and produce the Canvassing Literature 

and Script . . . including the actual costs of design and production, and a commercially 

1 Advisory Opinion Request (“AOR”) at 001. Texas law defines “[g]eneral-purpose committee” as 

a political committee that has among its principal purposes supporting or opposing: two or more candidates 

who are unidentified or are seeking offices that are unknown; one or more measures that are unidentified; 

or assisting two or more officeholders who are unidentified. Texas Elec. Code § 251.001(14).

2 AOR003. 

3 AOR001-3. TMP states that its major purpose does not include federal campaign activity. 

AOR003.

4 AOR002.

5 Id. The Canvassing Literature and Script will not be used for any purpose other than TMP’s 

proposed Paid Canvass. AOR014. 

6 AOR002.

7 AOR014.

8 AOR002. 

9 Id.

10 Id.

11 AOR002, 14. 

12 AOR002. 
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 3

reasonable profit for the vendor.”13 The distribution costs are the “[p]ayments to one or 

more vendor(s) to recruit, hire, train, and manage canvassers . . . including payments to 

compensate the canvassers for their time, actual costs to the vendor to recruit, hire, train, 

and manage the canvassers, and a commercially reasonable profit for the vendor(s).”14 

The data costs are the “[p]ayments to one or more vendor(s) to store (on a data platform) 

and analyze the voters’ answers to the questions posed by paid canvassers . . . including 

the actual costs of maintaining the platform and analyzing the data and a commercially 

reasonable profit for the vendor(s).”15 TMP states that except for the data costs, the Paid 

Canvass “will not have non-communicative components; for example, unlike some 

grassroots efforts, [it] will not include offers to drive voters to polling places.”16 

The Paid Canvass will disseminate the Canvassing Literature and Scripts within 

the pre-election timeframes described in Commission regulations,17 will refer to federal 

candidates and political parties, and may also include express advocacy or its functional 

equivalent with respect to federal candidates.18 TMP will consult with federal 

candidates, party committees, and their agents on the canvassing program.19 

Accordingly, TMP anticipates “it will come into possession of nonpublic plans, projects, 

activities, or needs of candidates (federal and nonfederal) and/or political parties,” and 

thus will engage in substantial discussion as defined in Commission regulations.20 

However, the canvassing program will not involve the dissemination, distribution, or 

republication of federal candidate campaign materials. 21 

13 Id. 

14 Id.

15 AOR002-3.

16 AOR003.

17 See 11 C.F.R. § 109.21(c)(4).

18 AOR003. 

19 AOR003-4.

20 AOR003. See also 11 C.F.R. § 109.21(d)(3).

21 AOR003. See 11 C.F.R. § 109.23.
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 4

Questions Presented

(1) Are the Canvassing Literature and Script “public communications” under 11 

C.FR. § 100.26?

(2) Are the Canvassing Literature and Script “coordinated communications” 

under 11 C.FR. § 109.21?

(3) Are the production costs or distribution costs “coordinated expenditures” 

under 11 C.F.R. § 109.20?

(4) May TMP provide any of the data that arises from the paid canvasses to a 

federal candidate or party committee at no charge or less than its fair market 

value?

Legal Analysis 

(1) Are the Canvassing Literature and Script “public communications” under 11 

C.FR. § 100.26?

(2) Are the Canvassing Literature and Script “coordinated communications” 

under 11 C.FR. § 109.21?

No, the Canvassing Literature and Script are not public communications and, 

therefore, are not coordinated communications.

Under the Act, expenditures that are coordinated with a candidate or political 

party committee are treated as contributions to that candidate or political party 

committee.22 Specifically, Commission regulations provide that if a communication is 

“coordinated with a candidate, an authorized committee, a political party committee, or 

an agent of any of the foregoing,” the payment for the communication is an in-kind 

contribution to that candidate or the political party committee from the payor.23 

Commission regulations set forth a three-prong test to determine whether a 

communication is a coordinated communication.24 All three prongs of this test must be 

met in order for a communication to be deemed a coordinated communication. 

The Commission concludes that the Canvassing Literature and the Scripts do not 

constitute coordinated communications because they do not meet the content prong of the 

coordinated communication test. The content prong provides that a communication is a 

22 52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(7)(B). 

23 11 C.F.R. § 109.21(a), (b)(1). 

24 Id. § 109.21(a). 
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 5

coordinated communication only if it is an “electioneering communication” or a “public 

communication” that meets at least one of five content standards.

25 

An “electioneering communication” is defined as “any broadcast, cable, or 

satellite communication” that refers to a clearly identified federal candidate, is publicly 

distributed within certain time periods, and is targeted to the relevant electorate.26 TMP’s 

proposal does not involve any “broadcast, cable, or satellite communications” and thus, 

would not constitute electioneering communications.

Therefore, only if the Canvassing Literature and Script are “public 

communications” could they be coordinated communications. A public communication 

is defined as “a communication by means of any broadcast, cable, or satellite 

communication, newspaper, magazine, outdoor advertising facility, mass mailing, or 

telephone bank to the general public, or any other form of general public political 

advertising.”27 

Because paid door-to-door canvassing as proposed in the request is not expressly 

enumerated in the statutory or regulatory definition of “public communication,” the 

Commission must determine whether the Paid Canvass constitutes “general public 

political advertising.” The catch-all term “general public political advertising” is not 

defined by the Act or Commission regulations. However, “the Commission interprets 

each term listed in the definition of ‘public communication’ or in [52 U.S.C. § 30120(a)]

as a specific example of one form of ‘general public political advertising.’”28

In a 2006 rulemaking concerning internet communications, the Commission 

discussed the common elements of communications that fall within the category of

general public political advertising.29 The Commission observed that one of the common 

elements is that such communications typically require the person making the 

communication to pay “for access to an established audience using a forum controlled by 

another person, rather than using a forum that he or she controls to establish his or her 

own audience.” 30

25 Id. § 109.21(c)(2).

26 52 U.S.C. § 30104(F)(3); 11 C.F.R. § 100.29(a).

27 52 U.S.C. § 30101(22) (emphasis added); see also 11 C.F.R. § 100.26. 

28 See Disclaimers, Fraudulent Solicitation, Civil Penalties, and Personal Use of Campaign Funds, 67 

Fed. Reg. 76,962, 76,963 (Dec. 13, 2002).

29 Internet Communications, 71 Fed. Reg. 18,589, 18,594 (Apr. 12, 2006). 

30 Id. at 18,594-95.
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 6

The Commission discussed this common element in Advisory Opinion 2022-20

(Maggie for NH). In that opinion, the Commission observed that general public political 

advertising “typically require[s] the person making the communication to pay to use a 

third party’s platform to gain access to the third party’s audience.”31 The Commission 

explained that traditional forms of paid advertising generally require a speaker to pay “to 

disseminate a message through a medium controlled, and to an audience established, by a 

third party.”32 The Commission concluded that short-code text messages — which were 

only sent to individuals who agreed to receive messages from the Committee — lacked 

this common element and therefore did not constitute “general public political 

advertising.”33

Here, the Canvassing Literature and Script will not be disseminated “through a 

medium controlled, and to an audience established, by a third party.”34 Unlike a 

newspaper or television company, the canvassing vendors will have no preexisting 

relationship with the canvass’s audience and will have no more right to communicate 

with the audience than TMP.35 The vendors will also not establish or identify the 

audience for the canvassing program.36 Instead, TMP will preselect the voters whose 

homes will be visited.37 The vendors will simply act as TMP’s agents in carrying out a 

canvassing program that TMP controls. Under TMP’s proposal, the canvassing vendors 

neither establish the audience nor control the forum. Accordingly, the proposed Paid 

Canvass is distinguishable from the types of communications that fall within the 

definition of “general public political advertising.” 

Furthermore, door-to-door canvassing is a traditional grassroots activity 

fundamentally different from the types of mass media enumerated in the statutory 

definition of “public communication.”38 Unlike communications made via television,

newspapers, magazines, mass mailings, or telephone banks, door-to-door canvassing 

involves individual people talking face-to-face with voters. It is not the type of mass 

31 Advisory Opinion 2022-20 (Maggie for NH) at 4-5.

32 Id.

33 Id. at 5. The Commission further noted that text messages sent only to individual subscribers who 

affirmatively opt-in to the messaging ⸻ and “therefore have sought out the speaker and speech through a 

forum controlled by the speaker” ⸻ are analogous to “to speech disseminated through a political 

committee’s own website, which the Commission previously concluded is not a public communication.” Id. 

34 See id.

35 AOR002, 6. 

36 AOR002.

37 Id.

38 52 U.S.C. § 30101(22). 
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 7

communication contemplated in the definition of “public communication.” 

Accordingly, the Commission concludes that the Canvassing Literature and Script 

are not “public communications,” and thus would not satisfy the content prong of the 

coordinated communications test. Because the content prong is not satisfied, the 

Canvassing Literature and Script are not coordinated communications. 39

(3) Are the production costs or distribution costs “coordinated expenditures” 

under 11 C.F.R. § 109.20?

No, the costs to produce and distribute the Campaign Literature and Script are not 

coordinated expenditures under 11 C.F.R. § 109.20, because they are expenditures made 

for communications. 

Coordinated expenditures are defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(b), which provides:

Any expenditure that is coordinated within the meaning of paragraph (a) of this 

section, but that is not made for a coordinated communication under 11 CFR 

109.21. . . is either an in-kind contribution to, or a coordinated party expenditure 

with respect to, the candidate or political party committee with whom or with 

which it was coordinated. . .

40

The Commission has explained that section 109.20(b) applies to “expenditures that are 

not made for communications but that are coordinated with a candidate, authorized 

committee, or political party committee.”41

The Canvassing Literature and Script are communications.42 TMP’s proposed 

production costs are limited to payments to the vendor to design and produce these 

specific communications, which will not be used outside of the Paid Canvass.43 

Similarly, TMP’s proposed distribution costs are limited to payments to the vendor to 

39 Because the Paid Canvass would not satisfy the content prong of the coordinated communication 

test, the Commission need not, and does not, address the third and final part of the test, the conduct prong. 

See 11 C.F.R. § 109.21(a)(3), (d).

40 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(b). Section 109.20(a) defines “coordinated” as “made in cooperation, 

consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate's authorized 

committee, or a political party committee.” 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(a).

41 Coordinated and Independent Expenditures, 68 Fed. Reg. 421, 425 (Jan. 3, 2003) (emphasis 

added); see also Advisory Opinion 2011-14 (Utah Bankers Association).

42 See communication, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019) (defining “communication” as “1.

The interchange of messages or ideas by speech, writing, gestures, or conduct; the process of bringing an 

idea to another's perception. 2. The messages or ideas so expressed or exchanged.”).

43 AOR002, 14.
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 8

recruit, hire, train, and manage the canvassers who will disseminate the canvassing 

communications.44 The canvassers will not engage in any work for TMP other than 

disseminating the communications and recording voters’ answers to scripted questions.

45 

The payments to the vendor(s) to produce and distribute the Canvassing Literature and 

Script will not be redeemed for any other purpose.46 Because the expenditures at issue 

here will be made solely to produce and distribute communications, they do not constitute

coordinated expenditures under 11 C.F.R. § 109.20(b), which only applies to expenditures 

that are “not made for communications.”47

(4) May TMP provide any of the data that arises from the paid canvasses to a 

federal candidate or party committee at no charge or less than its fair market 

value?

If TMP provides the data that arises from the paid canvass to a federal candidate 

or party committee for less than its fair market value, it would result in an in-kind 

contribution to the candidate or party committee. 

A contribution includes “any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of 

money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any 

election for Federal office.”48 “[T]he provision of any goods or services without charge

or at a charge that is less than the usual and normal charge” is an “in-kind” 

contribution.49 Commission regulations define “usual and normal charge” as the price of 

goods in the market from which they ordinarily would have been purchased at the time of 

the contribution, or the commercially reasonable rate prevailing at the time services were 

rendered.50

TMP acknowledges that the data gathered from its Paid Canvass is a thing of 

value.51 Indeed, it characterizes the data as a “marketable asset that can be sold or rented 

to others.”52 Accordingly, if TMP provides the data to a federal candidate or party 

committee for “less than the usual and normal charge” it would result in an in-kind 

contribution. 

44 AOR002. 

45 AOR014.

46 AOR011.

47 Coordinated and Independent Expenditures, 68 Fed. Reg. 421, 425 (Jan. 3, 2003) (emphasis 

added).

48 52 U.S.C. § 30101(8)(A)(i).

49 11 C.F.R. § 100.52(d)(1).

50 Id. § 100.52(d)(2). 

51 See AOR013.

52 AOR013.
AO 2024-01 (Texas Majority PAC) 

Page 9

This response constitutes an advisory opinion concerning the application of the 

Act and Commission regulations to the specific transaction or activity set forth in your 

request.53 The Commission emphasizes that, if there is a change in any of the facts or 

assumptions presented, and such facts or assumptions are material to a conclusion 

presented in this advisory opinion, then the requestor may not rely on that conclusion as 

support for its proposed activity. Any person involved in any specific transaction or 

activity which is indistinguishable in all its material aspects from the transaction or 

activity with respect to which this advisory opinion is rendered may rely on this advisory 

opinion.54 Please note that the analysis or conclusions in this advisory opinion may be 

affected by subsequent developments in the law including, but not limited to, statutes, 

regulations, advisory opinions, and case law. Any advisory opinions cited herein are 

available on the Commission’s website.

 On behalf of the Commission, 

 Sean J. Cooksey, 

 Chairman

53 See 52 U.S.C. § 30108.

54 See id. § 30108(c)(1)(B).